Day 7

Rain.

The morning is spent reading and relaxing in the house, and when Artur arrives, we decide to go with him to Inhambane to get some fuel and money, and check the flight situation for Tuesday. The rain makes driving on the sand a different experience – sometimes easier, sometimes harder. The road from Barra to the Tofo junction is more vibrantly red in the rain, and the car is getting covered in clay.

Day 7

6:00am, 4:15am, 7:00am … I was in need of a lie in. So I got up at 10:30. Not a problem, I’ve already got Bangkok done and dusted from a previous trip, so I didn’t have anything I desperately needed to see. Apparently there’s a new metro system, but I was willing to bet it was pretty much the same as every other new metro system in the world.

Day 7

summary:Strong winds for our last day. Speedy sailing to Acle and back.
location:Ludham
trip:sailing03
day:7

Day 7

This morning we left the camp for Saint Petersburg, and faced a 12 hour drive.  With Sasha’s music collection.  We drove along the simple highway through forests and fields, and for a couple of hours ran parallel to a train track.  The only train we saw was towing at least 50 tankers, probably delivering oil to a refinery.  The road deteriorated and at one point we were practically off road, something for which our mini bus was not well designed.

Day 7

location:George / Plett. Bay
summary:Train tour, drive to Plettenburg Bay
trip:sa02
day:7

Day 7

I imagined I might be sharing a compartment with some seasoned travellers, and that we’d exchange stories about our adventures long into the early hours.Of course, as it turned out, none spoke English – though one, a Romanian farmer, was happy to try out his high-school English. The others also looked as though they were on business rather than pleasure, so we were all in bed by 22:30.

Day 7

I woke up to find it was almost noon. Wow – slept for AGES. Then I realised that I’d sent an email to Wee telling her I’d be in the lobby at 12 if she wanted to meet. I’d never make it in time, but fortunately she phoned just as I was starting to panic and asked to meet at 2, which got me off the hook. I had a chocolate croissant for breakfast. The regular ones had run out and the breakfast buffet was long gone. In fact, they were serving lunch. Wee arrived at 2:15, and we set off for the National Museum.

Day 7

Waking up to the sound of dogs barking and general commotion outside, I start wondering what the time is. Gadgets fail me, for I have not a single thing in the room which could tell me the time. I get up anyway, and find eventually (had to resort to looking up the time on my camera) that the time is about 5:45 am. Groan. Have a shower anyway. We leave at around 8am for the factory in Rusape, where this season’s shelling is about to begin. Basil strides around the plant checking the place out, stopping occasionally to talk to the workers in Shona. It’s all I can do just to keep up with him and so I spend the day following him around like a lost puppy. At the plant I feel doubly conspicuous for the fact that I am clearly the only white person in attendance, amoungst a workforce of over a hundred.

Day 7

After the activities of the last couple of days, my body and wallet needed a break, so I spent today reading, doing laundry, and catching up on E-Mail.

Nothing much